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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution (1959)
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution (1959) Ambakisye-Okang Dukuzumurenyi 23 Views • 5 years ago

In a 22 December 1958 letter, Morehouse president Benjamin Mays invited King to address the graduating class of 1959; King accepted six days later. In these prepared remarks—his earliest known usage of this title—King invokes his common themes of anticolonialism and black self-respect.1 He places the domestic “social revolution" in a global context and urges the graduates of his alma mater to rise above the limits of “individualistic concerns,” submitting that all people are “caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality.”

News coverage of the speech indicates that King modified this handwritten text at several points. He advised his audience to adhere to nonviolence, for the "oppressors would be happy if black Americans “would resort to physical violence” and reminded them of progress already made: “We’ve broken loose from the Egypt of slavery . . . and we stand on the border of the promised land in integration.”2 King reportedly closed with a warning against inaction: “If you go home, sit down and do nothing about the revolution which we are witnessing you will be the victim of a dangerous optimism.”3

There can be no gainsaying of the fact that we are experiencing today one of the greatest revolutions that the world has ever known. Indeed there have been other revolutions, but they have been local and isolated. The distinctive feature of the present revolution is that it is worldwide. It is shaking the foundations of the east and the west. It has engulfed every continent of the world. You can hear its deep rumblings from the lowest village street to the highest intellectual ivory tower. Every segment of society is being swept into its mainstream. The great challenge facing every member of this graduating class is to remain awake, alert and creative through this great revolution.

Shared for historical purposes. I do not own the rights.

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Mumia Abu Jamal - 175 Progress Drive (2001)
Mumia Abu Jamal - 175 Progress Drive (2001) Ambakisye-Okang Dukuzumurenyi 23 Views • 5 years ago

A collection of audio essays from the world's most famous death-row prisoner. Some are new, including one on the 2000 Presidential elections, some are newly released from the NPR archive, some are vintage recordings from his days as a freeworld radio journalist, including his classic interview with Bob Marley and his coverage of the conflicts between Move and the Philadelphia police.All are new to CD, and together give a portrait of Mumia over a 30-year period.This features rare interviews by and with journalist and 20 year Pennsylvania death row resident Mumia Abu-Jamal. Produced by Anita Johnson of Hardknock Radio in association with Weyland Southon. Executive Producer : Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.Mumia Abu-Jamal is the author of Live from Death Row and two other books. He lives on Pennsylvania's Death Row at 175 Progress Drive.Shared for historical purposes. I do not own the rights.

Tracklist Hide Credits
1 –I Was Born With Two Tongues For Mumia 2:58
2 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* A Rap Thing 4:06
3 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Public Schools & Public Housing 2:30
4 –Ruby Dee Why A War On The Poor 2:58
5 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Defense For The Prosecution 3:42
6 –Rubin Hurricane Carter Rubin Hurricane Carter 1:12
7 –Assata Shakur Assata Shakur 3:23
8 –Marc Bamuthi Joseph Marc Bamuthi Joseph 3:45
9 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Police Shooting 2:07
10 –Michael Franti Manhood 3:55
11 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* The Wheels Of Soul 0:33
12 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Youth News Magazine 1:09
13 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Lost Generation 3:38
14 –Unbound Project Allstars* Mumia 911 Producer – Diamond D Remix – Rocks Tha World 7:55
15 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* NPR 10/03/80 "Carter Campaigns" 1:11
16 –Martin Espada Another Nameless Prostitute Says The Man Is Innocent 2:58
17 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Senior Hot Lunch Program 1:24
18 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Absense Of Power 3:15
19 –Peter Coyote Meeting With A Killer 4:24
20 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Building A Better Mousetrap 3:13
21 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Nursing Home Crisis & Disabled Activist 2:13
22 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* A Crisis Of Black Leadership 3:04
23 –The Seeds Of Wisdom* You Make The Call 5:48
24 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Interview With Ossie Davis & Ruby DeeInterviewee – Ossie Davis, Ruby DeeInterviewer – Mumia Abu-Jamal*1:24
25 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Black Promoters Boycott 1:22
26 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Interview With Hugh MasekelaInterviewee – Hugh MasekelaInterviewer – Mumia Abu-Jamal*1:11
27 –Mumia Abu-Jamal* Interview With Bob MarleyInterviewee – Bob Marley Interviewer – Mumia Abu-Jamal*1:11

PYGMIES: SHORT ON LAND [1999] - Cameroon
PYGMIES: SHORT ON LAND [1999] - Cameroon Ambakisye-Okang Dukuzumurenyi 23 Views • 5 years ago

⁣With soft guttural whoops and a tickle of the water, a pygmy man in Central Africa plucks a fish from the river with his bare hands. Another hunter releases a crude arrow into the canopy above. A monkey falls from the trees, shot directly through the heart. Eyes still bulging from the shock, the hunter quickly slots the monkey’s tail under its lolling neck to make a neat bag of his bush meat. It’s skills like these that have allowed the pygmies to live in the rainforest of Cameroon for generations. But now they’re facing stiff competition for their forest range.
With only 7% of the rainforest here protected, there are rich pickings for the loggers. Now logging tracks have spread like spiderwebs through the forest, leaving the pygmies exposed. Perversely, conservationists are also gnawing away at the pygmies' land. Wildlife reserves patrolled by anti-poaching patrols leave just 1% of the forest available for the pygmies. Emile, an old hunter, bemoans the coming of the white men.“Because there’s this protected zone we don’t have enough to hunt. We were forest people, now we’re beggars.”
Caught between two worlds, the pygmies are making their choice. “'Before we used to live in the forest. Then the tall people came and said you can’t live like this. Before, we always used to run away and hide. Then we said this is getting us nowhere and we left the forest.” The pygmies are reaching out, demanding schools and health clinics. Now many families have abandoned their nomadic lifestyle, settling around mission schools.
Yet outside the forest the Pygmies are struggling to find their place. They are forced into jobs that only serve the whites or the Bantu, the predominant black tribe in the area. They’re losing their identity and are being treated like bonded labour, paid with alcohol, food and cast-off clothing. Ironically, many also find work with the logging companies themselves. Hacking down their forest home for a few cents per tree. In a state of rapid cultural transition they don’t know which way to jump. Their culture grates with the loggers’ work ethics. At the local sawmill their ways are tolerated but not respected. “It’s difficult to work with pygmies. When the hunting season or harvest time comes, they simply leave .You can't rely on them. When people won’t change their mentality they can’t be integrated in the workplace' moans the French sawmill manager. Working for hunters is the only other employment around. Tourists pay $20,000 a week to have the pygmies lead them to the prize prey of elephants and gazelles. Its easy work for the pygmies but it’s killing their land as well. The hunters' guns spell danger to the region's elephants.
Back in the forest, in their traditional leaf huts, a band of pygmies try to live as they used to. Their children line up to have their canine teeth filed - the pain is worth it, they say, for this mark of pygmy beauty. The men hunt, the women gather, digging for roots and grubs to be roasted. But even here the lure of a western way of life is drawing people away. The refrain of many mothers is the same. “I want to stay in the village. The most important thing to me is that [my child] can go to school.”
The pygmies are in an impossible situation, their skills, perfected over hundreds of years, are becoming worthless in a world dominated by profit and loss accounts. They are being exploited in the same manner as the ancient rainforest trees: as an expendable commodity with a short term value. Can the pygmies find a successful identity as the modern world closes in?
Produced by Marion Meyer-Hohdahl

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